search marketing blog: ambergreen

While direct mail has seen a decline in revenue in the past six months, the online channel continues to grow, contributing an additional £284 million to UK advertising revenues.

Many businesses are seeing the benefits, and with Environment Minister David Miliband threatening to enforce direct mail opt in, the increased use of online marketing is becoming more and more critical, especially in the charity sector if Miliband has his way.

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According to new information from comScore, click through rates have improved on the yahoo! network since the introduction of the Yahoo Search Marketing Panama system.

Click through rose from 10.1% to 11.1% in the two weeks following launch.

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US Civil rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation is supporting Google’s decision to allow advertising on trademarked keywords, seeing the decision as part of first amendment rights and a simple case of freedom of speech.

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Google are no longer content with their domination of the internet it seems, now they want our brains too.

According to Larry Page, co-founder Larry Page your brain’s algorithms are not all that complicated (speak for yourself Mr Page) and could be replicated. Google are, of course, working on it right now.

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A new study has shown a clear difference in the way users search when looking for information and when they shop online.

The eye tracking study, by De Vos & Jansen Market Research with Search Engine Mediabureau Checkit, showed that users look at more results when shopping and are more brand orientated than people looking for information only.

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For the first time mucky pups have been thrashed into second place as the share of UK internet visits recorded more visits to search engines than adult websites.

According to Hitwise research search engines accounted for 13.3% of all UK internet visits , compared with 11.5% for adult sites. Wonders never cease.

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Hello all, I’ve been away for a little break so I hope you missed me, or more specifically the blindingly useful blog stories

As always your suggestions and comments are most welcome (now that I can keep on top of them again!) – keep ‘em coming!

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A new EU directive will see an EU ban on ‘sock puppet’ reviews or websites as part of an overhaul of consumer laws.

The moves could see businesses who post fake reviews of their products or services, fake blogs and use false identities be charged with “falsely representing oneself as a consumer”.

The changes, which come into place on December 31st, will see businesses named and shamed and/or taken to court by trading standards.

Even praising your own book on Amazon will become illegal according to The Times.

The changes in law could upset many companies at a time when customer reviews are becomein increasingly more important in the online sales process. According to research from The Henley Centre and AOL 77% of online consumers agree that if they ‘saw a negative review on the internet about a product or brand I would think twice about buying it’

The legislation change comes as part of a Europe-wide overhaul of the consumer laws obliging businesses not to mislead consumers.

Google has ended it’s ‘invite only’ sign up for Google Mail (or Gmail as it’s known outside the UK), making the beta email system available to anyone wishing to use the web based mail service.

While the service has been available since 2004 it has previously been on an invite only basis, now anyone can visit www.googlemail.com and open an account.

Google has also launched an application which gives UK users access to their inbox from their mobiles, running on any Java based phone.

Google has begun to employ its contextual advertising system Adsense to offer adverts in its global mapping system Google Earth. The move will allow adverts to be seen as clickable links, while contact and address information will put advertisers ina local context.

The offer allows advertisers to place sponsored local adverts into map markers across the site. Google announced the news to advertisers saying: “If you’ve created Local Business Ads in you AdWords accounts, they’ll now appear on Google Earth in addition to Google Maps.

“Advertising a hotel in Lake Louise? A neighbourhood café in Paris? Google Earth users across the globe can zoom in on your business. Don’t forget to add a customised icon to make your ad stand out.”